


Not So Different After All

by IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow



Category: The Fall (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hunter and Hunted story, Stella's inner thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1969809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow/pseuds/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Examining her face in her bathroom mirror after her shower, she wraps her blonde hair- hair she needed to get professionally dyed again. She sees the lines of age on her eyes, bracket marks around her lips. She turns her toned body to the side and examines her ribs, the slender curve in her waist. She knew the effect she had on men.  And she knew what they wanted from her. Only, they never expected her not to call, not to beg them to come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Different After All

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Fall, but I do think that it should have an adequate category other than 'Misc.' on fanfiction.net. This was inpired by a request to write a fanfic for 'The Fall' on tumblr. Anyway, this is not a smut story, but I have a f/m one in the works now. Please read and review

She kicks her feet in the smooth water, slices with her hands just like she was taught as a child. She remembers sliding the swim cap over her mousy brown hair, freckles speckling her skin before she would dive in for the freestyle. _Get the lead on him, Stella. If you get the lead we’ll win!_ She doesn’t dive into the water anymore, nor does she swim in races- but isn’t life just one race after another? She’s racing now. Against time. Against a misogynistic killer. Against herself.  She finishes her two hour swim work out, exiting the pool after stretching.

* * *

 

Examining her face in her bathroom mirror after her shower, she wraps her blonde hair- hair she needed to get professionally dyed again. She sees the lines of age on her eyes, bracket marks around her lips. She turns her toned body to the side and examines her ribs, the slender curve in her waist. She knew the effect she had on men.  And she knew what they wanted from her. Only, they never expected her not to call, not to beg them to come back. This was her design. She’d gotten what she wanted- the feel of human flesh on her skin, of someone inside her and of hurried breaths. She knew they would complain; tell her that she _used_ them, later. They felt disposable and used-something she’s found quite curious.  After all, isn’t that what they were intending to do to her?  

She pulls the camisole over her body, her skin prickling, gooseflesh arising as the smooth satin drenches her skin, covers her breasts and torso.  

 She glides to her readily made hotel bed, feeling the pads of her feet, remembering once again how small she actually is without her heels. She flips up the heavy covers and slides in on _her_ side, wondering if she can really claim a side as _hers_ if there wasn’t a second party involved. She resolves that she’s a grown woman and could call the side whatever she wanted. Still, sometimes the bed feels cold and night and she wishes for something to warm her, knowing no one will come. Knowing that she really, truly only wants them for ephemeral reasons. She will warm herself. It’s how she wants to live. She gets what she wants.

She thinks of the guys and girls that depended on her when she was a child, hooted and hollered for her to win the race, to take stronger strokes, to flip turn faster. She wonders when she stopped depending on people, and realizes it was when she realized that altruism doesn’t exist. Not really. It never did.

She glances at her phone and thinks of the deleted messages, of the dead cop whose hands she refused to let touch her, whose hands would never lift his child from the ground, or ruffle his hair again. It was foolish to believe in altruism. Everyone had motivations. Even she had intentions, but she made them clear by declaring her room, placing the sign on the door and hurriedly scribbling her phone number as if to say ‘here it is, don’t use it.’

She thinks about choices. Of the people’s faces she’s jammed her stiletto heels into on the way to the top. She’s spurred by power. By control, things she knows about herself.

Maybe the killer, this Paul that had her analyzing a phone conversation and conducting press conferences, was correct. He tries to Lecture her, tell her what she truly is, but she knows. Half-baked philosophies aside, she looks up to her ceiling, seeing nothing in the darkness of the room. They aren’t much different at all.

The thought keeps her up all night, and she has visions drop through her consciousness of a medal around her neck, of her coach lifting her in the air, of her mousy brown hair sticking to her smiling face, feeling on top of the world, a feeling she wouldn’t soon forget. How could she?

They aren’t much different after all, power and control playing large parts of their lives. She’s ruthless in finding him. She’s obsessed with making him pay for his crimes, giving the families closure.  But there’s something he didn’t account for in his indiscriminate analysis. She doesn’t chase power, power molds to her skin, fitting her like the black spandex bathing suit she swims long laps in. She possesses power, owns it like a second skin, while he fights for the fleeting feeling in his bones. She will catch him. And when she latches the cuffs around his wrists and slams the door to his iron-bar cage, he would finally discern their differences. By then, the power he felt would seep through his fingers like the lifeblood he dispossessed from his victims. He didn’t know power, but he would.

He fucked up. And she would find him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Currently accepting prompts for: The Fall, Bedelia/Hannibal, and Scully/Mulder. Please tell me what you thought of this story, I'd really like to hear your thoughts! Thanks for taking the time to read my story! :)


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